Rommelen
The highland realm, crowned by peaks of ore and frost, Rommelen is a land of stone fortresses and roaring hearths. The Montari people prize endurance, honor, and craft, shaping metal, wood, and even bread with the same patient hands.
The inhabitants view the mountain’s rockface not simply as a barrier but as an ally: the ancestral ram carved in the crest of House Ótumað is said to have scaled the highest summit and looked down on the world, proclaiming endurance in silence.
Because Rommelen’s people prize solidity and tradition, they are sometimes slow to deal with rapid changes, such as the arrival of lowland merchants or strange magical technologies.
Rather than sprawling plains-cities, Rommelen’s settlements cling to cliffs and ridges. Ancient holds are carved into sheer rockfaces, connected by narrow sky-bridges.
One famous hold is Stone-Ivory Keep, perched above the Greyfall Gorge, where the ram-horns of the cliff-goats echo through nightly mists.
The sky-bridges themselves are woven of mountain-steel and lightning-forged iron, a testament to the blend of craftsmanship and nature.
Foothills & Highlands
Where other realms celebrate movement or freedom, Rommelen celebrates staying put, standing firm when the storm comes. As the motto puts it: “Endure and Commit.”
Sons and daughters of Rommelen often undergo the Trial of the Two Axes at age fourteen: they must ascend the Thundercrest Ridge and fell two mountain-pines with hand-axes, symbolizing their readiness to carve their place and defend it.
According to legend, when the first Ótumað lord bound the mountain people, he hunted the great Storm-Ram, the mythical creature whose horns sparked lightning across the peaks. The ram’s sacrifice gifted the mountain folk the first Thunder-Axes, capable of channeling a bolt in battle.
The ram remains a symbol of stubborn courage, sure-footedness, and mastery of wild heights.
On nights when storms rage and ram-horn patterns appear in clouds, the people believe the covenant is renewed.
The mountains hold rich veins of ore. Iron, mountain‐silver, and “storm-steel” (an alloy tempered by lightning strikes caught in high-altitude forges).
Blacksmiths of Rommelen are revered: the best weapons and tools bear the crest of Ótumað and are etched with ram-and-axe symbols.
Carpentry is also mountain-craft: timber is rare, so the people use stone-masonry, cliff-wood (from high-maple groves) and lightning-glass (fused sand from storm-heat) in construction.
The Winter Vigil of the Ram’s Horn: On the longest night, people carve ram-horn shapes from the most overgrown tree of that season and set them aflame at dusk on cliff ledges, symbolizing light in darkness and roots that cling even when the world freezes.
The Forge-Strike Festival: Held after spring thaw, smiths descend from high forges in torch‐procession, striking newly forged blades in unison at dawn. The ringing echoes through the valley like thunder.
Storm-Fanged Isles
Far off the northeastern coast of Rommelen, where the Great Salted Waters churns itself into mist and thunder, lie the Magus Islands. This archipelago is a rugged string of basalt cliffs, wind-carved spires, moss-draped hills, and ancient stone sanctuaries. Though small in number, the islands hold cultural weight far beyond their size
Battered by fierce northern winds and long winters, the jagged cliffs rise straight out of the sea, creating natural fortresses of black rock and storm-hewn stone. Inland, the islands flatten into heathlands covered in burnt-gold moss, bone-white boulders, wild red heather, and shallow lochs that mirror the sky.
Peaks & Summits
Castle Mondbär, where the king of Rommelen resides, stands proudly upon Thundercrest Ridge, the prominent southern bluffs of Mt. Nanypsilo, the second highest summit in all the world. This mountain is not only a place of great importance due to the capital of Rommelen residing upon it, Nanypsilo is sacred. It is the very site where the Goddess of Air and Storms, Vaerkana birthed the siblings Dragon and Thunderbird.
Deep beneath the Thundercrest Ridge lies the Vault of Echoing Rams, a chamber where ancestors carved their oaths into stone and bound them with storm-iron. Only a singular path leads there. Narrow, perilous, and open to only the toughest adventurers.
Legend has it that at the summit of Nanypsilo, high above Castle Mondbär, stands the Sky Loom: a granite slab that bears scorch-marks of millennia of lightning strikes. The very loom used by Vaerkana to weave the winds and the fabric of the air. Smiths claim that forging steel on it yields unique lightning-tempered blades. If such a thing exists, it would rarer than Nightfoil, metal used exclusively by the Lion Riders.
Royal
house Ótumað
Motto: “Endure and Commit”
Current Ruler: King Stendrott the Proud
Origins & Lineage
House Ótumað descends from the Mountain-Carvers, the first people to hollow fortresses into the stone spines of the Rommelen Highlands. They were warriors and woodcutters, smiths and shepherds living where others could not survive.
Symbolism of the Crest
Ram: stubborn courage, sure-footedness on treacherous slopes
Axes: craftsmanship and martial tradition
Lightning: storms of the mountain peaks
Evergreen Tree: eternal endurance even in winter
Knotted borders: unity through hardship
Cultural Role & Reputation
Ótumað blooms in adversity. Their homeland is cold, severe, and steep, and so are their virtues. They value resolve, duty, and pride in labor.
Stendrott the Proud
Stendrott’s pride is not arrogance but deep loyalty to his people. He believes no hardship is too great, no path too steep. He expects excellence and gives it in return.
Known for:
personally leading winter patrols through avalanches
rewarding hard work with titles, not birthright
speaking bluntly, sometimes too bluntly, especially with foreign rulers